


Pull the Trigger

by tjmystic



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Push AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2017-12-08 07:29:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjmystic/pseuds/tjmystic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Push (2009) AU:  Neal's father told him before he disappeared that a young girl would give him a dreamcatcher.  He told him that Neal had to follow that girl, help her with everything he had.  Because she was the key to their survival.  She... and Neal himself...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1:  Push

Pull the Trigger (1/?)  
Title: Pull the Trigger, a Push Swanfire AU

Chapter 1: Push

Rating: PG-13 for now, but there will be a smutty Swanfire scene in the future

Author’s Note: Here it is, guys! I know a lot of you have been looking forward to this, so I’m happy to finally indulge you :D

Before I let you read, though, I’m gonna give you a little background since I know from your comments that a lot of you have never seen the movie “Push”. (I highly recommend renting it, by the way, especially if you’re a fan of Chris Evans. I’m not, particularly, but if you like his body, you will be greatly rewarded.) I explain all this in the second chapter, but, just for posterity, the world that this AU takes place in has a whole race of people with psychic abilities (ex. telekinesis, mind control, etc.) It’s kind of like the X-Men, except, instead of doing things to their own bodies, they can only control other people/things. Also, there are a set number of categories that you can fall into. These are Movers (people who can move things & people with their minds; Neal and Rumple are Movers in this verse), Watchers (people who can see the future), Sniffers (people who can tell everywhere that something or someone has been just by smelling it), Touchers (same as Sniffers but with touching), Shifters (people who can change something’s/someone’s appearance for a set amount of time), Stitches (can either break or heal any muscle in a living thing’s body just by touching it), Bleeders (scream at such a high pitch that it can shatter glass or pierce eardrums), Wipers (can erase peoples’ memories up to a certain point), Shadows (can hide things from Watchers and everyday people but not Sniffs), and, finally, Pushers (can convince you of whatever they want you to believe just by making eye contact).

Any other questions will be cleared up in Chapter 2, if I’m not mistaken.

Alright, then, off with you! Go read, my lovelies, and be sure to tell me how you like it!!!!! :D

 

“Bay! Bay, come on son, get up!”

The boy’s eyes blinked open at his father’s voice. It surprised him, at first, to see how minimal the light filtering into the room was. But his dad sounded frantic, and that was explanation enough for being woken up so early.

“Dad, what’s wrong?”

BA-BANG- BANG!

Bay leapt to his feet in an instant, his father’s worn shawl and makeshift blanket falling to the floor. Gunfire had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember. Had to be, when they were always being chased, always being hunted. He’d learned to fear that sound.

It hadn’t been a difficult lesson.

“Hurry, son, get your things!” his dad whispered, already throwing him his bag from the foot of the bed. Bay had only a second to analyze his dad’s face – his eyes, wide with terror and darker, wilder than he’d ever seen them before – before he turned to gather his own things. For his dad to look like that could only mean one thing, and it confirmed the suspicions that Bay had already formed at the sound of the gunshot – they’d been found.

He didn’t pause in fear, didn’t cry or beg his father to make it stop. He was fourteen years old – he’d passed that moment a long, long time ago. Instead, he dropped to his knees, grabbing anything and everything he could find. Their scant amount of cash on the nightstand, a few pairs of pants, his only book, all of them went into the bag. The rest technically belonged to the hotel, but he didn’t hesitate to stuff a few bottles of soap and shampoo into the case, too. Bay leapt out of bed, immediately grabbing whatever he could find. Their scant amount of cash on the nightstand, a few pairs of pants, his only book, all went into the bag. He’d just grabbed his dad’s cloak when the front door blew off its hinges. 

BANG BANG!

His dad held up his hands, and the door to the bedroom slammed shut, bolting itself in the process just as a hand crept through the empty space of the living room wall. He grabbed Bay’s hand, holding the cloak between them, and dragged them both to the fire escape. 

B-BANG! “Open up, Gold!”

Bay’s dad threw open the window and tossed their bags onto the metal landing. Bay followed, ignoring the sounds of scrabbling in the room behind them. Whoever it was would either get past his dad’s defenses or they wouldn’t – the only thing they could do now was run.

“Up to the roof, son,” his dad panted, taking his hand once more and pulling them up the stairs. His leg buckled underneath him with ever other step, but he didn’t seem to notice. Bay grimaced but kept his complaints to himself – much as he wished he could keep his dad from hurting, there was no other means of escape from this point. 

They hefted themselves over the ledge once they reached the top, his dad with some difficulty. Bay cursed himself for letting him forget his cane, but they were already racing for the other edge of the roof and, besides that, there wasn’t any time to go back now. 

SMASH!

Bay spun around on his heel, falling backwards when all he managed to do was skid across the graveled roof. His dad pulled him back behind the large air vent, but it was no use now. Whatever plan his dad had made was gone out the window (much as their own window was now shattered glass with a bullet popped in the mix). Their only way out now was to fight. Fight, or die. Bay pressed his hands into fists and leapt to his feet again, forcing back his adrenaline at the steadily loudening sounds of smashing metal and crushed glass.

Before he could so much as get to his feet, though, his dad pulled him back down, kneeling before him on his crooked leg and placing his hands heavily on his shoulders. Bay shivered – his dad hugged him all the time, but he hadn’t held him like this since Bay was a child.

“No, no, don’t look down,” his dad pleaded, much as he’d tried to make it sound like a command. “This is very important.”

Bay gulped but feebly nodded, trying to keep his neck from ticking every time the clank of heavy feet on metal met his ears. This was them now – whatever his dad had to say was more important if it was enough to make them stop. 

“I’ve seen everything die, son. You know that.”

Another clank, louder this time, sounded from below, and Bay couldn’t help but turn around this time. The men were gaining.

His dad gripped his face in his hands, whipped him around so that they were facing once again. His eyes were crinkled in concentration, and Bay’s knuckles turned white from gripping. He’d Seen something.

“In the future,” his dad gasped, his voice muffled by the strain of his own thoughts and the furious sounds below, “a young girl is going to give you a dreamcatcher. Follow her, Bay. Only she can stop this. Only her… and you.”

Bay’s eyes grew wide, but his father’s arms were wrapped tight around him before he could even begin to process his surprise. The sound of footsteps on the fire escape drowned away with his dad’s sobbing breaths in his ear.

“I love you, Bay,” he whimpered, pressing him tighter than Bay had ever been held in his life. A remote part of him began to dread what that meant, but his fear of dying overtook it all. “I love you. So, so much. Never forget that. Never forget anything.”

BANG BANG!

“Nowhere to run, Gold! Not that you could do much running anyway.”

Bay leaned out behind the air vent at the sound of the woman’s voice. He’d only heard men before, and, beyond that, something about her voice made him shiver. And once he got a look, he realized he was right to. She was sleek, methodical in all of her motions, even if she shook her hips in a way that made even him embarrassed. Her slick black hair sat perfectly atop her head, swaying back and forth with every step from her and her gunwielding backups. It was the eyes that got him, though. They were cold black like a raven’s. Heartless. Ruthless.

They were enough to distract him from the sound of her cocking her gun and lifting it to rest right on his face.

“BAY, NO!”

His dad barreled into him with more strength than Bay would’ve guessed he was possible of. Bullets grazed his sides as they rolled, but his father flicked his head and suddenly they were flying right back in the woman’s direction. Her henchmen screeched, and Bay was about to shout in triumph when the sharp rocks under his back gave way.

One foot swung over the side of the roof, followed quickly by the other and the whole of his torso. His dad leapt forward, grabbing him hard with both arms, but it wasn’t enough. They’d both have to fall. 

His dad glanced behind him, just a moment, before whipping his eyes back to his son’s. There was no fear in his eyes anymore. Only sadness. And Bay realized why the moment his dad let him slip to his elbows.

“You promised!” he screamed, choked and hoarse with broken sobs and the gunpowder falling into his mouth. “You said you’d come with me! That we’d get out together! YOU PROMISED!”

Tears ran down his face like rain, even as the crunch of footsteps grew louder overhead. His dad bit his lip, squeezed Bay’s hands a little tighter, and stared at him for one long, long moment. Then he clamped his eyes shut and let go.

“I’m sorry, Bay.”

Bay screamed, profanities, pleas, prayers, anything he could think of, as he careened backwards off the building. His father’s arms stretched out, even as the woman in black hauled him backwards, and Bay liked to think it was regret that passed his father’s eyes before he wrenched himself away. With nothing to look a now, he closed his eyes as the wind brushed his face, the concrete touched his back… 

And the sky went black. For a moment, he thought he’d died, that all life had left him and he was lying under the cold, dark ground. But then a drop of water hit him, stemmed from the leaking pipes overhead, and he realized that he was only half right – he was definitely underground. His dad must’ve Moved him into the basement as he fell. His very last action for his son.

BANG-BANG!

“DAD!!!!!!”

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

The man sprang awake in his bed, drenched in cold sweat and panting like mad. His eyes scanned the room around him instantly, ready to fight off any attacker or run like hell if need be. Greasy walls, burnt carpet, old food cartons – but no people. He sighed and leant back against the headboard. He was just in his dingy old apartment. It had just been a dream. 

He closed his eyes, and the sight of that damn basement, the feel of the dripping water on his face, and the sound of that gunshot overhead all came flooding back.

His whole body shook, and he brought his hands to his eyes to furiously rub the vision away. No, it wasn’t just a dream. It was the dream, the same one he’d had every night for ten years.

Every night since his dad let go of his hand.

He shook his head and snorted back the tears in his eyes. Crying hadn’t stopped it then, wouldn’t stop it now. 

Fighting back his headache, he lazily pulled on his underwear and pants and headed for the bathroom. The icy perspiration stuck to him like an itchy second skin, and it crinkled when he twitched his neck. He couldn’t wait to shower, but he’d have to wait till later in the night – as usual, he’d overslept.

Fucking nightmare.

Still, he could at least wash the salt trails off his face and attempt for something decent today. A twitch of his wrist had the cold water spigot spinning to the left. Or trying to, at least. He groaned and took the knob in his hand, pulling it forward all the way this time. He could never Move after that dream. He could never do anything after it. 

The water felt nice on his skin, cool and clean and soft, but it couldn’t make the images go away when he shut his eyes. Blink. His younger self’s face. Blink. His dad’s eyes. Blink. The woman in black.

His reflection in the mirror frowned, even as the cold water dripped down his back. It was always that damned woman in black. Agent Regina Mills, he later learned. If not for her, he and his dad wouldn’t have always needed to run, they could’ve had a normal life, or as close a semblance to “normal” life as they could with their abilities. If not for her, he never would’ve had to change his name to Neal Cassidy (a nod to his dad – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was always his favorite film) to avoid her and her drones. If not for her, his dad never would’ve let Bay go, and he wouldn’t have spent the last ten years of his life trying to reunite. Because his dad wasn’t dead. Nick Gold, the only one Division couldn’t catch, the only one of their kind with two powers, couldn’t have been killed. He was alive. Neal just hadn’t found him yet.

He shook the thoughts out of his brain like the water in his hair and walked away. Division – the agency under Regina’s control – had been rounding up psychics since World War II. All under the guise of creating some ultra-powerful army so things like Hitler could never happen again. But Neal smiled to himself and looked down.

“No, that’s not right, either,” he chuckled wryly, pushing his curly hair out of his face. His dad had always been a stickler about history – he’d hate to hear his son getting such an important part of their past wrong. It was the experiments that started in WWII. But Division – which, with his dad’s stern face in mind, he remembered was intent, at this time, to use psychics as a globalized weapons resource, not a peacekeeping army – didn’t actually exist until the Cold War. Hadn’t changed much since then, either, from the sound of things. So, in that way, that small little point, he couldn’t say that it was all Regina’s fault. She might run Division with an iron fist, might run it more effectively than it ever had been in the fifty or so years of its existence, but it was the program, not her, that was ultimately to blame.

He blinked, but her malicious glare still stared back at him.

Neal pushed himself away from the door and pulled on last night’s shirt. He’d need to do laundry soon. But then, he could also use a shave and a haircut, and he didn’t have time for those, either. He had work to do. Work of sorts, anyway.

He sat back onto the bed and took a deep breath. He had to clear his mind, had to focus on just what he wanted to Move. That was where he always messed up – the focus. He tried to keep that in mind as he turned to the wall and pointed at a little pouch on the desk. It wiggled, but otherwise did nothing. 

Neal frowned, set his eyes, and tried again, this time curling his fingers in towards his palm. Again, the bag only wiggled.

He sighed and dropped his hands, letting his slouched body fall into them in support. Nick had been brilliant at this. He could point at something behind his back and have it floating in front of his face in seconds. Hell, he used to make the waffles and pancakes fly around and make them do a little dance into Neal’s plate for breakfast. 

A wry smile touched his lips – he’d almost forgotten about that.

Neal closed his eyes this time when he faced the wall. He pushed away the image of Regina standing victorious over his dad’s body, the tune of bullets and clattering on the roof high above. All he focused on was his dad’s face. Not when he let go, but when he made Neal breakfast. The smile. The warmth in his eyes that almost undercut the fear that he always seemed to feel. That was the dad he remembered. That was the Nick he wanted to find.

He pointed again at the little pouch, and twitched his fingers forward. For a moment, he thought it hadn’t worked. And then a fuzzy little bundle fell into his left palm, and he grinned.

Beaming wide, teeth showing and cheeks pinched, Neal popped open the clasp and leaned back. That was his stock – the only child of Nick Gold, a man both telekinetic and clairvoyant. A Mover and a Watcher. If he could remember him even with one of those abilities, that would be enough for Neal.

He looked down at the pouch, but there was nothing inside. Confused, he tipped it over and shook it into his lap. Two bills. Two bills, and a bundle of lint. 

Neal sighed. He’d take whatever he could get psychic-wise, but, sometimes, he thought he’d like it better if he’d inherited his dad’s ability to see the future instead…


	2. Chapter 2:  Shove

Pull the Trigger (2/?)  
Chapter 2: Shove

Rating: PG-13 for now, but there will be a smutty Swanfire scene in the future (and perhaps a semi-sensual Rumbelle scene, too *winks*)

Author’s Note: What did I tell you, guys? The fic bug bit me well and good tonight :D Anyway, I’ll let you read at your own discretion since I know that Lacey is top priority for most (if not all) of you, lol. Just be sure to tell me what you think when you finally get around to reviewing this:

 

To everyone who knew it, the building at the corner of Apple Grove was nothing more or less than a mystery. The older folk thought it should’ve been torn down ages ago, and it was easy to see why. It was derelict, dirty, and little more than a shack in terms of size. No one ever went in, and no one ever came out.

But the lights were always on, and there were always cars parked outside.

No one would have guessed that the interior was a monstrous series of mazes stretching under the ground, a labyrinth of pristinely clean white-walled rooms and tiled floors. It might’ve looked like a hospital at first glance, especially with the constantly ringing phones and men in white coats, if not for the long row of rooms, each installed with a single glass window at the top, on the left of each hall. In some of them, faces pressed taut against the glass, emaciated, eyes wet with tears, noses running with snot as they silently mouthed “Help me.” Others seemed utterly empty if one didn’t step right up to the glass with some sort of light, all the better to see the dejected bodies curled up on the cots inside. Not that many people would want to – the ones in those rooms had long given up on caring how much of their skin was covered by their hospital gowns or whether or not they made it to the bathroom. 

But the woman in the dark purple suit - Regina, or Agent Mills to most - wasn’t “many people”. She smirked the whole walk down the hall, and looked into every window before finally stopping at one and stepping inside. She didn’t care to close the door behind her.

A flick of the string on the ceiling had light spilling all over the room, drowning the black man on the cot near the back. The nametag sewn into his skin identified him as Sidney.

Regina pulled him harshly to the side, forcing him to face her as she shoved a pen and pad of paper under his nose. 

“Watch,” she commanded.

Sidney stared blankly at the paper, numb and dull about his eyes. He didn’t respond.

Regina simpered at him, her smile twisted so that a few of her teeth sparkled between her lips. Sidney looked at their shine, transfixed, when she leant a little closer and pushed back the salt-and-pepper curls atop his head. 

“That was the wrong reaction,” she whispered.

She abruptly moved her hand from his hair, but Sidney’s head followed it as if the two were linked. He was almost in her lap by the time he noticed the large black needle in her palm.

His eyes widened in fear, body and mouth moving helplessly away from her, to try and whimper “no”. But the woman was too quick – she raised the syringe high, plunged it straight into his heart, and pressed the dispenser until all the black gunk flooded his body. The medicinal overhead light caught the glint of the foul liquid as it disappeared. It highlighted the way Sidney’s eyes froze, terrified… until his breathing finally stopped.

Regina took hold of his wrist with her thumb and forefinger, coolly counting the seconds on her wristwatch until his pulse finally tapped out. When at last it did, she moved the needle, seemingly to pull it out, but only pulled back on the plunger instead, not stopping until the syringe was completely refilled with his blood. Her purse clunked as she pulled it to her lap, drawing out a simple wooden box from somewhere within its depths. There was no hesitancy, no remorse, in her eyes when she dropped the syringe into the box, got to her feet, and walked back to the open door. 

She rummaged through her purse once more as she shoved the box back in, this time pulling out a small handmirror. Her eyes reached intently into its surface, turning almost completely black as she muttered into it, “Package the body for dissection, and, after you’ve done that, move patient 1313 in and process her for testing – she’s been acting fidgety lately.”

Though no one else had been in the halls a moment before, a trio of orderlies immediately rushed in to do her bidding, dragging out Sidney’s body like a sack of trash and ripping the nametag out of his skin. Regina didn’t spare them the briefest glance, though, knowing without seeing that they’d done exactly as she asked. Instead, she focused all of her attention on the next room, a significantly larger one that seemed almost separate from the rest of the building. All of its walls were glass, including the door near the back of the space. Tables and stands of laboratory and surgical equipment dotted every inch that wasn’t taken up by people, most of which seemed to be doctors based on the thick labcoats and face masks. All of them busied about the only person in their midst who didn’t match, a young woman with curly brown hair laid out on a medical table in the middle of the room.

Regina bit the inside of her lip, pursing them taut between her teeth as she watched one of the orderlies prepare an even larger syringe of black liquid at the side of the room. 

Clink.

She whipped back to the room she’d just left, eyes narrowing at the noise. The source was immediately clear, a tiny peridot ring currently rolling away down the hall. It seemed that the gaunt Regina being frog-dragged into the cell by two new orderlies, her skin snow white and her hair ebony black, had dropped it on the floor.

With a smirk, Regina turned back to the glass room, and didn’t notice when the ring skittered past the security cameras, past the long row of sensors on the floor that shut every room in the building, before tottering into the crack of a solitary electric door, just barely keeping it open.

The doctor inside the glass laboratory turned to Regina and gave her a thumbs up. Regina cursed under her breath – she’d missed the injection. 

“80/55 BP,” he muttered into the sound box at his side, his fingers clamped around the young woman’s wrist. Regina pressed herself closer to the glass wall, looking intently at the monitor beside her cot. Maybe this time would be different. Maybe this time the patient would survive. Maybe…

The monitor fell silent. Regina lowered her eyes as the doctor removed his mask and shook his head. 

“What a waste,” she muttered under her breath.

She spun on her heel to leave, her eyes turning black once again as she raised her mirror, but a subtle beeping stopped her in her tracks. She turned irately to the room Sidney had just vacated, looking to see if its new tenant had done something else. Nothing moved, though – and the beeping had grown louder. 

“Agent Mills. Agent Mills!” 

Regina whipped back to the glass lab, eyes wide with awe at the now erratic monitor inside. All air left her lungs in a rush when the woman on the cot rose like the dead from her table, eyes wide like a deer in the headlights. The orderlies swarmed her as she tugged the wires out of her body, but despite her recent death, she was much too fast for them. She launched herself from the table, sheets swinging in her wake, just as the two suited men rushed her. Their eyes went slack at the same moment as hers turned pitch, and they paused in their actions a moment too long – by the time they reached her, she was already gone, and the sound of their skulls cracking together reverberated loudly through the hall.

“Lacey, stop!” the doctor shouted, lifting his hands high in the air. At the same moment, a pair of threatening scissors rose beside her, and her eyes went even darker then before when she focused them on his face. He went rigid as a statue, and fell against his own surgical table when he dropped. Regina’s face blanched – she’d never seen a Pusher work so quickly before.

Regina ran for the door at the near side of the room, shouting for the girl to stop as she went. But the door was locked. All of the doors were locked. All except for the tiny electric portal on the side of the room closest to the other woman. 

Regina’s eyes narrowed in panic when the girl slammed it open, her own eyes widening curiously when her foot caught on something at the floor. Even from the distance, Regina could tell perfectly what it was – a small, meaningless, silver and peridot ring. Anger flooded her veins as she pounded at the wall, shouting at the top of her lungs, “Lacey, come back!”

But the woman didn’t comply. She dropped quickly to the ground, grabbing the ring from the crack, and disappeared into the adjoining hall. The door slammed shut behind her. 

Regina roared, her glare turning manic as she spun away from the glass lab. She rushed past the frantic orderlies, past the techs trying to open the now electronically-locked doors, and slammed her fist into the window of Sidney’s room.

“What did you do?!” she shouted.

The woman inside pressed her face to the glass. Her smile was serene, her stare unperturbed, when she lifted her left hand and waved it in Regina’s face. A visible white loop circled her ring finger. Regina roared, her eyes overflowing with pitch black, but a hand pulled her back before she could actually do anything. She raised her hand to slap whoever had the gall to touch her, but she stopped at the sight of the doctor, his upper lip sliced in half with a thickly bleeding cut.

“What should we do, Agent Mills?” he asked heavily.

Behind them, the orderlies continued to bash on the exit doors, resorting, it seemed, to trying to tear them down in an effort to get them open. The patients who still had some mental faculties left echoed their banging, and their manic shouts carried dreadfully through the building. 

Regina’s glare deepened, and the doctor backed away from her as if electrocuted.

“Alert all of our allies in this country, Whale,” she hissed. “We can’t let her escape. Nobody else has ever survived that injection.”

She flipped her head towards the room at her left. The new patient was still standing there, still waving with that same innocent smile on her lips. Regina huffed at her and walked away, calling over her shoulder at Doctor Whale,

“And give patient 1313 a triple dose today.”


	3. Chapter 3:  Nudge

Pull the Trigger (3/?)  
Chapter 3: Nudge

Rating: PG-13 (nothing too intense, but there is a rather odd comment about sex early on in the chapter)

Author’s Note: Hey guys! Just a couple of notes - don’t want to take up too much of your time ;)

First off, please excuse the first bit of this - I had to fit the exposition in somewhere so that the rest of the plot would make sense, and this seemed as good a place as any.

Anyway, I’m off to put the finishing touches on Accustomed so I can put it up next. I know you’re all chomping at the bit for that one, lol. 

Oh, and we get to meet Emma next chapter, so hopefully that’s incentive enough to read this one.

And, as always, be sure to tell me if the characterization or anything else if off. On you go, my lovelies:

 

Neal skirted easily down the back alleys leading into Manhattan. He hadn’t lived in the city long by most people’s standards – just three months come Sunday – but that was more than long enough for him to learn his way around. Especially in the areas where other telekinetics had set up shop. 

As a rule, Neal tended to stay away from the larger clusters of people like him. He’d seen too many of them be swarmed by division to really feel safe in a group. But, thankfully, most of the other Movers and Watchers and such in New York seemed to have the same paranoia. You wouldn’t find any if you weren’t looking. Today, though, Neal was – it had been awhile since he’d checked things out, and curiosity had always been one of his greatest sins. 

He passed the rundown Rabbit Hole club, looking immediately to the dingy expanse of buildings to his left. In an empty lot between two of them sat a trio of men, hunched over some game of dice. Neal watched curiously as the little cubes spun in the air, only for one of them to suddenly change so that there were ones on all sides. 

“You filthy cheat!” one of the men yelled, grabbing his friend by the arm to tackle the third, a white man with lots of stubble and a purple bandana. The man fell flat on the ground, scrabbling for the die which was once again set to rights. Neal smirked and kept walking – and he thought he was out of practice. But then, August deserved it if he’d actually been trying to cheat the guys out of their money by Shifting. God knew that Neal had been tricked by that a time too many himself. 

He shook his head, turning it right at the sound of more mumbling. 

“Please, I… I just need to find my Rose,” a man – British, by the sound of it – pleaded. 

An Asian woman in men’s clothes patted him on the shoulder and dragged him into the doorway of what seemed to be her shop. “Give me a moment,” she calmed, taking a small swath of fabric from the man’s hands and bringing it to her nose. She mulled over it for a moment, muttering names of places under her breath, before going back into the building and returning with a map.

Neal looked away and turned down the sidestreet on his right. There were more shops set up here – Watchers for rent, it looked like – and he couldn’t resist looking through the windows of each one. He still would’ve preferred to be a Watcher, there was no getting past that, but seeing the other powers reminded him to be happy with what he had. As a Mover, he knew how to get by just fine – pick things up with your mind, stash them in your pockets, and run like hell before anyone can catch you. He’d die as a Sniff – not only would it be useless when it came to stealing stuff, but he was sure would give him a headache to be able to see everywhere that something had been just by smelling it. Being a Shift like August would be even less helpful, though, since it would only allow him to change the appearance of something. Shifting a loaf of bread into a pack of cigarettes wouldn’t do much in the way of helping him steal it.

A piercing noise in the background, higher and louder than a siren, had him grimacing. Better a Sniff or a Shift than a Bleeder, he thought. He’d actually had a girlfriend once who was a Bleeder. She was nice enough, very sweet, but he always felt guilty for not being able to bring her off in bed. Not through any fault of his own, though, unless self-preservation was his fault – he’d found out the hard way that, if he pleased her all the way, she would scream, and, the next thing he knew, his eardrums would be bleeding and it would feel like his blood vessels had been snapped in two.

Neal shivered and took another right.

Black buildings, somewhat sleeker than the others, popped up on both sides. There were no labels on the dark windows, but that just made it easier for Neal to guess what they were. He’d had to go to one of them, a Stitch massage parlor, a couple times after Division almost got him. Made him pay through the nose, but it was worth it to get back the ability to move his legs. Not that he’d ever have considered cheating them anyway – they could set your bones and muscles back with a single touch, and with a single touch they could rip them apart-one-by-one, too. 

Still, they kept a very lucrative business, if the long queue out front was anything to go by. 

There were some pretty extensive lines outside the other shops, too, though Neal thought that those poor people really were wasting their money. Looking for Shadows and Wipers, he thought, shaking his head as he darted around the densely packed people. Shadows were basically useless, for him or anyone else, since they were only capable of hiding things from Watchers. Regular people – gas station owners, for instance – could still see without difficulty whatever the Shadows had hidden. Wipers, on the other hand, had their uses, but only if you wanted to forget something. Depending on how good the Wiper you went to was, though, you could ask to forget the last five minutes and end up with no memory of the last five years. Neal had never trusted them, never trusted anyone who had that much potential control over his thoughts, and he’d hate even worse to be given the burden of controlling other peoples’. Being a Wiper would be useful for sure – he could take whatever he wanted and then Wiper the entire event from the shopkeeper’s mind – but he’d never be able to look himself in the mirror. 

He felt the exact same way about being a Pusher, too.

Of everything he could be, a Pusher would be the most useful. One look directly into his eyes, and he could hypnotize whoever he wanted into giving him their whole house plus the clothes on their backs. The thought disgusted him, least of all because that was Regina’s power. How she got all her information. How she made people kill themselves so that no blood actually stained her own hands.

Neal looked away from the crowds of stores and people behind him. Thankfully or not, he didn’t have to deal with any of that. Like his dad, he was a Mover – the only thing he had to worry about was lifting stuff from place to place. 

He shook his head again to clear it and took his final turn. A grungy drug store, not much at first glance, peeked out from the corner. Neal looked around the alley in front of it, settling finally on a lost-poster of a brunette tacked up on the bricks. He put his hands behind his back and wiggled his finger. Unlike his wallet, the paper immediately moved to do what he wanted, unpeeling itself from the wall and snaking cautiously into his back pocket. Neal smiled wide – this might go as planned after all.

Neal dug the poster out of his pocket and shoved his hands in his pockets, stretching them out as far as they would go. He should’ve worn different pants, he thought, or at least tried to sew extra material into them. Then again, he’d always sucked at sewing. And cooking.

Which is why he was here at the best stocked drug store in town with empty pockets.

He sighed and shouldered open the glass door. The bell dinged overhead, and a man immediately popped up from under the counter. Neal took a deep breath to calm his heart rate and waved, hoping to look as casual as possible. He didn’t know that it had worked, but the man did smile and wave back, so that was something.

Neal quickly located the things he needed most. All of them were in the closest row to the door, which would make things difficult if anyone were looking, but it also meant he wouldn’t have to worry so much about logistics since he could see the reflection of them in the glass. He feigned interest in the energy bars in the bin beside it, hoping it would draw attention away from the bread and oreos he wanted, and meandered down the last aisle. He plucked a root beer out of one of the refrigerators, eyes on the cashier the whole time, and breathed in relief when the clerk returned to the backroom. He’d been prepared to make a distraction and Move everything while the man wasn’t looking, but this made things so much easier. And, in a weird way, it made him feel less dishonest, too. 

He shuffled down the row of drinks, eyes focused more on the glass than the liquids inside, and twitched his fingers to the right. A pack of hot dog buns floated up from the front row, almost seeming to wave at him, before he slammed his hand down and waved it towards his back. He heard the light scraping of the plastic across the floor, but he didn’t fully relax until he felt the squishy bread crawl under his sweatshirt. 

He blinked up at the mirrors over the coolers, but the man at the desk still hadn’t returned. Neal grinned, and shuffled his fingers until he felt the cool wrapping of a package of rolls. 

He strode down the aisle, picking up Band-Aids, milk, and the oreos he’d wanted all while pretending to be interested in the store’s Red Bull. He was glad he’d picked out this drug store – not only did it have the best brands, but everything was packaged small enough that it could fit in his pockets or under his shirt with ease. 

He was just reaching for a Coke in the back of the freezer – all the better to make his loitering seem less suspicious, and he was in need of a sugar fix – when something on the counter caught his eye. Neal glanced at it carefully, scanning in all directions for the clerk, but he never showed up. He quirked his eyebrow, curious, and strode forward, unable to keep himself from stuffing a cheap keychain down his pants in the process. 

It was a watch, as it turned out. Nice watch. Rolex, it looked like. Neal wiped off his hands flipped it over – no initials, no engravings. Added to that, it couldn’t matter too much to the cashier if he was willing to just lay it on the counter where anyone could nab it. Which was exactly what Neal intended to do. That watch would get him enough money that he wouldn’t have to steal anything for at least a few more months. A few months of living like a normal person instead of lowlife scum. 

His fingers were just fluttering over the counter’s surface when he felt someone’s presence over his shoulder.

“Hey!” a voice said. 

Neal turned around, ready to defend his actions, but he was cut off by a solid punch to the face. He hit the floor at the cashier’s feet, bread and candy flying everywhere. He scrambled to his feet, just dodging the man’s foot, but knocked into the newspaper stand instead. His head spun as the cashier leapt over the counter, angrily pressing the alarm button under the desk. 

Neal groaned and rolled dizzily into his dropped food, not bothering to pick any of it up as he raced for the door. The bell over the door echoed the ring of the alarm behind the desk, and Neal cursed as he skidded outside. The chainlink fence behind the store glinted out of the corner of his eye, and he cursed again as he hefted himself over the dumpster to jump it. He’d never risk going back through a telekinetic-hideout with stolen goods, especially when the cops were on their way. 

The pavement slipped beneath his feet, and he felt the bread squish under him as he fell. That didn’t matter, though, with the sound of sirens in his ears and the harsh yell of the cashier. He scrubbed at his nose and the blood he could feel oozing out of it but kept running. 

He didn’t stop until he reached his apartment. How long it took he didn’t know, but his legs felt like they’d be fine with falling off his body and his heart was beating way too fast. At least the sirens were gone – he was no marathon runner, that was certain, but he knew his way around the back alleys better than any cop could ever hope to. 

Panting, he dragged out the contents of his pockets. The chocolate had melted, the milk was warm, and the cookies were little more than crumbs. Miraculously, though, the hot dog buns were still alright, so he didn’t count the trip a total waste. Still, he’d have to scout out a new target. And learn how to Move stuff instead of just grabbing at it like a two-year old. 

He left the ruined food by the steps and trudged upstairs, massaging his knees every few steps as he tried not to collapse. He almost wished he had, though, when he reached the top and saw a piece of paper tacked to his door. Papers on doors were never good.

For an odd moment, he thought it was the “lost” poster he’d Moved in the alley, but a closer glance showed that what he’d thought was a picture was just densely packed words.

He ripped it off and scanned the first few lines, even though he already had a sneaking suspicion about what it was. Sure enough, he found the phrases he’d been looking for. Mr. Cassidy, you are $6,000 in debt. Mr. Cassidy, if you don’t pay your tab by next weekend we will call the police and have you escorted out. Mr. Cassidy, we will sue if you don’t comply.

Neal crushed the paper into a ball and lifted it to his bloody nose. It was soft enough to use as a tissue, and he didn’t want to add to his fine by dripping blood on the carpet.

He dove back into his pocket for his keys, wanting nothing more than to lie down and call it a day. He touched metal, but, when he brought it up, he realized it was just the keychain from the drug store. Chuckling, he dug a little deeper and pulled out his real keys, linking them onto the chain with ease. Maybe it would prove to be his good luck charm.

SLAM!

Neal jumped nearly a foot in the air, his keys clattering to the floor as he raised his fists to fight. He was expecting the cops. What he wasn’t expecting was a slender woman in sunglasses and a brown suit. But Agent Jack was hard to forget, even with her eyes covered and her hair pulled back.

“You know, it’s dangerous to be carrying your keys around like that,” she smiled. “Especially when you could just Move the knob with your mind.” 

Neal smirked at the senior Division agent, trying his best to feign nonchalance though his heart was still beating manically. 

“I got powers,” he said with a shrug. “Doesn’t mean I have to be a lazy asshole like you guys.”

Her smile grew even brighter. Neal knew better than to think of that look as anything but threatening, and his feet were already moving again before he could stop them. He was only partially surprised when he backed into something solid. 

“Is that any way to talk to a lady?” a smooth male voice muttered over his shoulder. 

Neal didn’t have to look to know it was Agent James – he’d know the sound of that man’s shit-eating grin anywhere. He laughed at him, pushing himself off of his chest and back toward the door. 

“No, but I was talking to her, not you,” he goaded. 

James’s smirk widened, his fist tightening at his side, but Jack rushed forward and grabbed his arm before he could do anything stupid. Senior Division or not, they both knew who would win in a fight between two Sniffs and a Mover, out of practice or not.

“Well,” James huffed, bringing his shoulders forward to straighten his heavy suit, “it seems like a pretty ‘lazy asshole’-type move to take things off the shelves with your mind. Why don’t you just grab it and go like every other thief around here?”

Neal stiffened, but managed to hide it by bending down to get his keys. He shoved them in the lock, then wiggled his fingers in James’s face. He almost laughed again when the agent’s hand reached for his gun.

“Fingerprints,” he mumbled. “I get caught sometimes, like today, and I don’t want people to figure out who I am. Draws too much attention from people like you.”

He could feel their eyes narrow at him behind their shades, and he mentally gave himself a pat on the back. It was with a grim smile that he nudged open the sticky door and sarcastically gestured for them to go in first. 

They didn’t hesitate, stomping all over his burnt carpet and turning over everything in their way. He’d figured that they were there to search for something – that was all Regina ever sent her Sniffs to do – but he still hadn’t figured out what. He didn’t like not knowing – it often led to him losing things. 

Subtly as possible, he snuck over to the cabinet at the far end of the room, trying to keep his hands still in his pockets so he wouldn’t draw too much attention. It seemed that the drug store bust had been good practice.

“So, how’d you guys find me?” he drawled, inching his fingers over the handle of the dresser.

James stopped in his perusal of the bedspread to draw something out of his tux and toss it in Neal’s direction. Bizarrely, it looked just like the blanket on the bed in front of them, but when he unfolded it, it proved to be something even more surprising – it was a brown traveler’s cloak.

“A little medieval, don’t you think?” Jack sneered, lifting his toaster and Sniffing at the knobs. 

Neal saw her, vaguely, but he wasn’t paying enough attention to really answer. The last time he’d seen that cloak in person he’d been thirteen-years-old. The last time he’d seen it in his head, though, was just that morning. It was the same cloak his dad took from him every night in his nightmares. The same one that he’d had to drop on their way out the fire escape. 

He held it reverently in his hands, gripping it close to try to keep his body from shaking. “Where’d you get this?” he rasped.

James snorted and dug his hands under the mattress. “That’s not really your business, now, is it?” 

He left for the kitchen with Jack, and Neal felt safe to let a shiver run down his arms. He folded the cloak as carefully as he could and stuffed it in the cabinet he’d been sneaking towards. The threadbare material barely covered the guns inside, a .44 Blackhawk and a .45 Centerfire. His hands itched to pick them up, to fire at the two agents and be done with it, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. They weren’t here to kill him; he wouldn’t feel right about trying to off them instead. 

He slammed the drawer shut behind him and followed Jack and James into the adjoining dinette. Jack had progressed to sniffing his refrigerator door, moving all over the handle with her nose as she tried to get a whiff of something, but she still saw him enter. 

“Sorry it took us so long to find you,” she droned. “We figured you’d have moved to Hong Kong by now like the rest of the losers trying to evade Division.”

James nodded in agreement. “Your friend with the dice down there, Mr. Pinocchio, he’s been all over Asia trying to hide from us.”

Neal leaned back against the kitchen table with his arms crossed. He was impressed that his voice didn’t waver, and that, judging by his reflection, he looked relatively calm.

“Wow, you’ve been following me that long?” he asked, laying the sarcasm on thick for his intruders. “I man, I had my suspicions when you asked about the stealing stuff, but wow. Regina really doesn’t give her lap dogs much of a life, does she?”

He’d anticipated Jack’s glare, but he didn’t think it would strike enough of a nerve for James to slam him against the wall. His head spun, and he found himself regretting that he hadn’t been able to hold onto the bottle of asprin – he’d be needing it later if people kept insisting on bashing his head into things.

“Cut the crap, Cassidy,” he demanded. “Where’s the girl?”

Neal lifted both his eyebrows. Of all the things they could’ve asked, that was the one that made the least sense. He hadn’t talked to anyone, much less a woman, in over a month. 

James didn’t appreciate his hesitation, it seemed. With a groan, he unbuttoned his jacket and pulled out another paper from his pocket. Neal briefly considered that he should invest in a suit jacket if it could carry that much crap, but his thoughts were cut off when James shoved the paper in his face. It took him a moment to recognize it as the “lost” poster from the alleyway. 

“This girl!” he shouted. “I saw you take her poster off the wall! Where are you hiding her?!”

Neal shook his head, trying in vain to pry James’s hands off his shoulders. “Dude, if you’re trying to prove a point about my social life, you’ve already won. I haven’t had a girl here in years. Seems I’m just as pathetic as you two.”

The agent growled, raising his fist to Neal’s face, but, again, Jack interrupted him. 

“He’s right, James – there’s no trace of anyone else here.”

He could feel the anger seeping off the agent in waves, and he was both surprised and relieved when the pressure on his collar relaxed; he didn’t think his head could take another hit.

The thought had barely crossed his mind, though, when James grabbed his neck and pressed him hard against the plaster. He swore he could feel his brain reverberate around his skull, and it took all his willpower not to be sick. 

“You’d better not do anything stupid like try to run away,” the other man hissed. “We’ll know – we’ll be watching.”

James let go of his neck, and he fell boneless to the floor. He heard them barge through his living room, heard the door shut behind them, but he still didn’t try to pick himself up until all the sunlight outside had disappeared. 

With a groan, he shoved himself off the tile and crawled over to his bed. He shoved aside empty pizza boxes and beer cans, lifted the loose floorboard by the foot, and dug out the sack he’d hidden there. His head ached as he finally stood to his feet, but he didn’t even think about stopping. 

It took him only a few seconds to toss his clothes into the bag, scant as they were, and the rest of his meager possessions. He grabbed the guns in the cabinet, too, stuffing them in his pockets just in case, and, after a moment’s deliberation, did the same with his old cloak. It wasn’t much, not really, but it gave him hope that his dad was still out there.

Neal took one last look at the room behind him, at the greasy walls and pink carpet, then stuck the door shut behind him. He tore off his stolen keychain, but he left the keys in the lock – he wouldn’t be needing them anymore.


	4. Chapter 4:  Drive

Pull the Trigger (4/?)  
Chapter 4: Drive

Rating: PG 

Author’s Note: This is it, guys - the introduction of Emma. With any luck, I didn’t butcher her as a character, and this ridiculously short chapter won’t bore you to tears. 

Alright, enough stalling. May the swanfire begin! :D

 

Neal blinked at the annoying rays of light hitting his eyes. Blearily, he threw his arm over his eyes, grabbing at his last minutes of sleep. Or would have, if his watch hadn’t said it was noon. 

With a groan, he let his arm fall to his side and stretched. His feet banged against something solid before he could do more than bend his knees, though, and he blinked again to see what he’d hit. It was a car door. For a short moment, he started to panic, but then the memories of last night came rolling back – the yellow Beetle down the street that he’d unlocked by Moving, hotwiring it, driving it to a vacant lot to crash for the night.

The only problem was that he wasn’t in the vacant lot anymore, and the scenery outside was moving.

He shook off the jacket he’d been using for a blanket and looked up. They were still in the city, judging by the skyscrapers he could see out the windshield. His shoulders slumped in relief – his kidnapper probably wasn’t Division, then. If they were, he’d be half way to one of their retention facilities by now.

Slowly, careful not to freak the driver, Neal lifted himself on his elbows and looked left. One eyebrow quirked almost all the way into his hair – it was a girl. A young girl, by the look of her, probably not even sixteen, with blonde hair, nerdy glasses, and what seemed to be rags for clothes. He held back a snort of disbelief and leant forward, his hands braced on either side of her headrest.

“I’d say you could’ve just asked me for the keys,” he muttered groggily, “but I don’t actually have any.”

The girl jumped a solid inch out of her seat, just managing not to bash her head on the roof. The car swerved into oncoming traffic for a fraction of a second before she gripped the wheel again, but the blaring horns were proof enough of how close they’d been. Neal shut his eyes, trying to get rid of the ringing left behind, only to be struck hard in the jaw by a set of hard knuckles. His brain rattled in his head as he shook it – he was awake now.

“Jesus, don’t do that!” she yelled, glaring at him over her shoulder. “What the hell?!”

Despite the continuing buzzing in his head, Neal smirked. This girl had his attention, whoever she was.

Hands curled on the front seats, he pulled himself up and plomped down on the space next to her. He ignored her scoff of protest and leaned closer, arm braced on the dash so he could see her without twisting his neck.

“I think you’ve got it a little backwards,” he grinned. “You’re the one who stole my car.”

She lifted her eyebrows at him, though she still didn’t look at him head-on. “Yeah, the car that you stole first. Seriously, did you expect me not to notice the shoddy hotwiring job?”

He laughed, even louder when she jumped again in her seat at the noise. She had to be the most abrupt person he’d ever met. 

Smiling, he lifted his free hand and held it in the air next to hers on the wheel. “Neal Cassidy.”

The girl glanced at him, but she didn’t move her hands. “Yeah, not telling you my name,” she drawled suspiciously. “Not that you’re not gonna need it anyway.”

Neal cocked his head to the side, teeth showing his grin was so wide. “And how do you know that?”

He expected another brush-off, or at least a witty comeback. He hadn’t at all thought that she’d point very seriously to her head and say, “Watcher. And I already know that Neal isn’t your real name, and that you’re a Mover but you suck cause you don’t practice.”

The humor left Neal’s eyes, and his spine straightened a bit. She was too young to be Division, he could see that well enough, but that didn’t make him like Watcher on his trail any more.

“I practice,” he argued, angry with himself for sounding so pouty. Unfortunately, the Watcher girl had heard it in his tone, too.

She snorted. “Yeah, you’re a really sucky liar, too.” 

He cocked his head another inch. He couldn’t say he minded her mouthiness, but he didn’t at all appreciate how much she seemed to know about him.

“What is that, another tele-bility or something?” he asked slowly. 

She shook her head no, but didn’t look towards him again. “I can just tell. I –”

WEOOH!

Both of their eyes flashed up to the rearview mirror. And the blaring red light that was suddenly reflected in it. 

The girl slammed her hand on the seat. “Shit!” she hissed under her breath. 

Neal chuckled at her. “Nice vocab for a twelve-year-old.”

She spared him another glare before looking back in the mirror. “I’m seventeen, you perv.”

The siren grew louder. Neal looked over his shoulder at the approaching car and shrugged. “I might be a pervert, but you’re definitely a car thief. You didn’t get caught, did you?”

“No,” she huffed. Hard-assed as she was acting, Neal could see a shimmer of fear in the corner of her eyes. “But… I did run a red light about a block before you woke up. And there was that car you almost made me run off the road.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her as she scanned the sidewalk. “Didn’t you See that you’d be pulled over?”

The car veered right when she finally found an empty place to pull over. “Doesn’t work that way,” she grumbled. “Most Watchers think nothing can surprise them, but I know better. The future’s always changing. You can change it just by thinking about it.” 

She parked, and, for the first time, turned to face him completely. He was surprised by how big her eyes were behind the glass, how strangely teal. 

“I have to draw out what I see, too,” she continued softly. “You See in flashes, pictures. Not facts.” Her eyes creased a bit, and now it was her turn to cock her head at him. “Didn’t your dad tell you that before he died?”

Neal blanched. A thousand thoughts raced through his mind. His dad. She knew his dad. Or at least she knew about him.

His mouth fell open, soundless in his shock, but, before he could figure out what he was going to say, the siren gave another whirr and the cop stepped out of the car.

Neal looked away, patting at his pockets frantically even though he didn’t have any keys. A piece of plastic fell out of shirt, though – he recognized, with an ironic smile, the key chain he’d stolen the day. Even more luckily, he also had his latest fake ID on him, too. 

The girl opened her mouth, probably to ask him what the hell he planned on doing with any of that, but he chose to ignore her for the moment. He flicked his wrist towards the ignition, and the keychain flew towards it, hovering so that it looked like there really was a set of keys there. A vein twitched in the side of his neck – she was right; he didn’t practice enough. 

Trying to look as casual as possible while holding the keychain in place, he leant over her side of the car and rolled down the window. The cop glowered down at him from outside, his pad and pen ready to write them up. “License and registration.”

Neal shoved the card into his hand. “Sorry bout that, officer,” he apologized happily. “See, I’m teaching my little sister how to drive a stick.”

The cop glared between him and the girl, his meaty hand scribbling something on the paper. “She’s got a lot to learn.”

Neal hissed congenially and shrugged, hoping he didn’t flinch when the keychain dropped. “Yeah, well… women.”

The girl smacked him a second time, this time on his shoulder. “Thanks, misogynist!”

He stuck his tongue out at her and pushed back, not hard enough to do anything to tilt her but enough, h hoped, to make the car believe it was typical sibling rivalry.

Thankfully, the plan seemed to have gone without a hitch. The cop didn’t smile, or even lighten up on his glare, but he did give Neal his license back. 

“I’ll let you off with a warning,” he gruffed. “This time.”

Neal nodded, and smiled at the officer’s back until he got in his car and drove off. He released a sigh of relief, and leant back into his own seat, letting the keychain fall with him. When he looked back up, however, the girl was still glaring at him. 

“That wasn’t just an act, you know,” she muttered. “I don’t appreciate being talked down to.”

He blinked. “I don’t think anybody does,” he replied seriously. He wanted to pat her shoulder, or grin, or something to show her that he understood, but he didn’t think she’d take it well. He settled for muttering, “I’m sorry,” instead.

She hesitated for a moment, obviously waiting to see if he really meant it. Something about him seemed to have satisfied her, though, since she nodded and backed against the window so they could see each other.

Neal sighed. “So… how do you know my dad?”

The girl almost smirked at him, though not cruelly, and crossed her arms. “Let’s start small, okay? The first thing you should be asking is why I took this car.”

“Alright, then, why’d you take the car?”

She tilted her head in his direction. The smirk she wore, which had been small to begin with, turned instantly serious. “Because I saw you’d be in it.

He leaned a little closer. “And why’d you need me?”

Her hands twitched in her lap. “There’s this briefcase I’ve been Seeing a lot of lately. I… don’t know much about it yet, but I do know that what’s in it is worth $6 million. The only problem is, Division has it right now.”

“So where do I fit in with that?”

She paused another moment. “The only way I can get that briefcase is with your help. I don’t know why, but that’s the only way I’ve Seen it.” She looked away. “That’s all I know.”

She wrung her thumbs, and Neal tried his best not to look. He might not have her thing, but he could tell when somebody was lying, too.

He shouldn’t trust her. He didn’t really want to trust her. But he couldn’t help it, even though he knew she was lying. She knew something about his dad – that had to mean something. 

“Six million?” he repeated.

She looked up at him, clearly amazed that he’d believed her. “Yeah,” she agreed shakily. “Should be more an enough to cover your debts, right? Maybe get a new start?” 

He looked at her, just for a few moments, and nodded. “Yeah.

He waited for her to say something else, to give him something else to think about. But her lips stayed shut. With nothing else to distract him, Neal took a deep breath, and tried again.

“What do you know about my dad?”

She still didn’t say anything. He lifted his eyes, irritated by her refusal to answer, until he saw that her own were shiny and wet.

“I… I know a lot,” she replied softly. “I know that he was a Mover and a Watcher. I know his name was Nick Gold. And I know that Division is still scared to death of him.” She turned away toward the window, but Neal could still see the reflection of the sadness in her eyes. “My mom told me all about it… before Division got her. Three years ago, tomorrow. After your dad, she’s the best Watcher in the world.”

Her voice broke on the last syllable. Neal looked away as she pulled herself together – she may have stolen him, but she deserved that much.

He didn’t like the idea of going up against Division, especially not when his only ally was a seventeen-year-old whose only attributes were successfully stealing him and managing not to get arrested for running a stoplight. He didn’t know anything about her abilities as a Watcher, or a thief, or, more importantly, a person. 

But she was offering six million dollars. That would be enough to get him out of the country, away from Regina, and, with any luck, closer to finding his dad. For all he knew, the girl knew where he was already, but, for whatever reason, just didn’t want him to know. 

He let his head fall to his arm on the dashboard. He glanced over, relieved that she wasn’t crying, and exhaled. “How… how about we talk details over lunch, huh?”

She blinked at him in surprise. “You’re gonna help me?” 

He smiled at her and shook his head. “Let’s start with lunch first. I’m sure you could use something to eat.”

On cue, the girl’s stomach growled. It was no wonder – now that he’d gotten a good look at her, it seemed like she hadn’t had a real place to live in months, much less a good meal. She looked embarrassed, but he brushed her off with a grin. 

“Come on,” he said, hopping out of the car and gesturing for her to take the passenger seat. “I know a great place downtown.” 

He circled around the car and pulled open the driver door, glad that she’d rewired the car before she crawled into the other seat. He moved his hand to the gear shift, but, just as he’d moved out of park, the girl glanced nervously at him and muttered under her breath,

“Emma Swan.” 

Neal stared at her confusedly for a moment before he realized what she’d given him. He nodded in response and played with brake. “Good name.” A corner of her mouth twitched up, and he let himself smile, too. “I thought you said you weren’t gonna give it to me, though.”

Emma tilted the seat back, and looked out the window as he pulled away from the curb.

“Like I said,” she mumbled. “Future’s always changing.”


	5. Chapter 5:  Smash

Pull the Trigger (5/?)  
For phoenixwrites

Chapter 5: Smash

Rating: PG

Author’s Note: Sorry for taking so long to update this one, guys. I promise nothing, but if I can manage it, I won’t make you wait this long again. Anyway, this chapter’s pretty much straight-up action, but you will get to see a few new characters and find out what’s in the suitcase Emma’s so set on. Next chapter gets back to the drama and the mystery. Hope you enjoy, my lovelies!

 

“Alright, so we’ve just got two fish tacos and a large order of fries. Anything to drink?” 

“Beer.”

“Coke,” Neal corrected. Emma glared at him, but he pretended not to notice. “And I’ll have one, too.” 

The waitress nodded at her pad of paper and walked off behind the row of hanging alcohol bottles. Neal grinned – one of the reasons he liked this place was that no one ever paid attention. 

“I can handle liquor, you know,” Emma muttered beside him. 

He cocked his head in her direction, grinning wide. “I don’t doubt it. But I’d rather we were both sober for this conversation.” 

Emma scoffed, obviously disagreeing, but she didn’t say anything else about it. Privately, he counted that as a victory. 

The waitress swept back through almost immediately, dropping two glasses and a plate of greasy food on the bar in front of them. His stomach rumbled, desperate for something that wasn’t stale or tasting of cardboard, but he forced himself to sit still so Emma could eat first. He was hungry, sure, but by the look of her, she hadn’t eaten a full meal in days. 

When she didn’t automatically dig in like he’d wanted to, she nudged the plate in her direction and sat back. “Take what you want,” he mumbled. “I’ll just eat whatever’s left.”

She didn’t answer him. For a second, he wondered if she was ignoring him because he hadn’t let her get a drink, but, when he turned towards her again, he understood that she hadn’t even noticed – her hand was too busy scratching ink onto a ratty kid’s notebook with unicorn stickers on it, head bent so close that she almost touched the paper with her nose. Neal quirked an eyebrow, watching as she drew an endless line of boxes at the bottom of the book. She must’ve slipped it out while he wasn’t looking, though how she got it out so fast and was already drawing on it baffled him. Although, since he hadn’t seen it in the car, it was also possible that she swiped off someone in the restaurant. At least that would explain how she broke into his car so fast. 

Emma sketched another line, this one cutting diagonal across the background. He couldn’t tell yet, but it looked like a ship. 

“I’ll be done in just a second,” she said under her breath. She didn’t sound irritated or sarcastic this time, just distracted. 

He leaned in a little closer. “What is it going to be?”

She shrugged, her eyes still set on the paper. “I’m not sure yet. It’s somewhere we need to go, though.”

“So this is something you’re Watching, then,” he noted curiously. “Not just something you’re drawing.” 

“Yep. In case you haven’t noticed, I kinda suck at art. This just helps me keep the images straight.”

Her pencil slipped over the paper, crosscutting the sail with a wave of water. Her other hand, meanwhile, finally reached out and took three fries from the plate. He chuckled in relief and took a piece of fish for himself. 

“You willing to answer my questions now?”

Emma didn’t look up from her drawing, but, after a few seconds and another fry, she did twitch her head. “Are you gonna help me?”

He laughed. “It means I’m thinking about it.”

She didn’t say anything this time, but she did twitch her head in his direction. It was more than he’d gotten before, so he took it. 

“Alright, so this case you were telling me about,” he started. “Exactly how much cash is in it?”

The bell over the door behind them rang as someone else came into the near-empty bar, but that was the only noise he heard. Emma still refused to say anything. He couldn’t help but notice, though, that she was fidgeting in her seat.

“Already told you, it’s more than enough to get you out of debt,” she mumbled, adding another wave to the paper. “And I never said anything about cash.”

Neal narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “You said it was worth six million.”

“It is. But there isn’t any actual money in it.”

Emma sat down her pencil. She stared, unblinking, at the ship for a long moment, then sighed and flipped the page. She kept turning, passing drawing after drawing, some complete but most not. For a second, Neal thought he saw something, a familiar human figure with a long coat, but she passed it too quickly for him to get a good look. 

Finally, near the front of her journal, she stopped. No longer avoiding his stare, she turned the picture around and pushed it towards him. The only thing she’d drawn on the paper was a box. A box with some sort of tube inside it. 

“It’s a needle,” she explained, pointing at the cylinder. “Like, medicine needle.”

“And this medicine is what’s worth six million?” She nodded. “What’s in it? What’s it do?” 

“No idea.” She took the notebook back and turned another page. The picture looked just the same, except, in this one, a pair of manicured hands were wrapped around the needle, and half the liquid colored inside it was gone. “I Saw this, though, right after I drew the first picture. It means that Division has it.”

A shiver went down his spine – he thought those nails looked familiar. His nightmare flashed through his brain, and he suddenly found that he couldn’t look at Emma’s notebook anymore. 

Emma looked at him in surprise, but he’d already turned away from her, focusing on the only other couple in the bar. Watching them didn’t ease his mind any, though – something about the woman’s hair, and the fact that the wait staff was avoiding her like the plague, only made him more tense.

A tap on his shoulder brought him back. “How do you know Regina?” 

“Long story,” he said distractedly. “I…”

His voice died off. The couple, apparently realizing he’d been watching them, turned around in their seats. The man was sharp dressed with grey hair and a stern face, his pocket bulging with what could only be a gun. But the woman, her brown hair piled high and her mouth set in a simpering smile, worried him much more. 

“We have to move,” he muttered softly. “Now.”

Emma slammed her book shut, stuffing it into her bag and swinging it onto her shoulder in an instant. He let himself worry, for just a second, about how much trouble she’d been in before now to get those kind of reflexes. But then the woman at the booth got to her feet, and any thoughts besides getting the hell out of her way left his brain. 

“Come on!” he hissed, hauling Emma to her feet. 

She didn’t stop to ask him why they were running, just grabbed his hand and followed. He bypassed the front door, not bothering with the easy way out, and headed straight for the staff entrance at the side. The shouts of cooks and waitresses in the kitchen echoed dimly as he steered them through the room, but their protests fell on deaf ears. He only ran faster, harder, towards the door at the back of the bar. And he never let go of Emma’s hand. 

They fell out of the backdoor with a slam, hitting the sidewalk a good two feet underneath them, but Neal used the momentum to carry them forward, thrusting Emma off the ground when she banged her knees. Her breath was coming hard now, as was his, but he didn’t dare slow down, pulling both of them towards the end of the alley. 

“What the hell’s going on?!” she panted behind him. “I didn’t seen any cops or Division!”

He almost turned to answer her, or at least tell her he’d explain in a minute, but their path was suddenly blocked. Emma skidded to a halt behind him, almost causing him to ram into the leather-clad man in the way, close enough now that he could see the black Division symbol branded onto his neck, the hook sticking out from where his hand should be, and the tip of his tongue on his lips as his eyes swept over Emma. 

“Nowhere to go,” the man smirked. “Best give up while you’re ahead.”

Neither of them stopped to listen to him, turning clumsily and running fast in the other direction. They’d barely made it a few feet, though, when the back door of the bar slammed open again. The grey-haired man from the booth sauntered out, gun aimed at their heads. Behind him, the woman laughed and folded her hands. Neal cursed under his breath – he should’ve known getting away from Cora wouldn’t be that easy. 

The man – George, he thought – cocked the hammer as he stepped closer, and Emma’s breath caught in her throat. “Oh. That’s why we were running.” 

Neal glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, unconsciously squeezing her hand as he took in the grim set of her mouth. It took him a minute to realize the fear in her eyes weren’t pointed at the gun, but Cora. 

He nudged her in the side, drawing her attention even as he started looking for another way out. “Don’t tell me you’re messed up with her little mafia thing,” he muttered. 

There weren’t any paths off the alley, nor any doors they could sneak through, but he sighed in relief anyway when Emma shook her head “no”. 

“She runs a mob?” She snorted, a wry smile turning up the corners of her eyes. “That makes too much sense. I just know her asRegina’s mom.”

Neal faltered. “That part’s news to me.”

He felt Emma’s stare on him, just as much as he could feel the man with the hook closing in. “I wouldn’t know except for my mom. She warned me about her before she… before she was taken.” She turned her head just a fraction of an inch, her eyes glued to their feet. “Don’t listen to her, and don’t look her in the eye.” 

“I didn’t think she was a Push.”

She shook her head. “She doesn’t have to be.” 

“Not giving away all our secrets, I hope, dear.”

Emma jumped at Cora’s voice, but she hid it well. He wouldn’t have noticed himself if she hadn’t squeezed his hand. He squeezed back.

“I wouldn’t know where to start,” she scoffed. “Extortion, theft? Murder?”

Cora smirked, sauntering a few steps closer. Neal braced himself, refusing to step back, but he couldn’t keep from shivering when he felt someone’s breath on his neck. He didn’t think about why, didn’t analyze the strange look Emma gave him, just tugged her closer so she was partially hidden to both the man behind them and Cora. 

“What’s so interesting about us?” he said, thankful that he’d managed to make himself sound calm. “We’re just a couple of homeless thieves.”

Cora simpered. “Don’t undersell yourselves, dear. If either of you take after your parents – the best Watcher in the world and the only one of us with two powers?” She pretended to shiver. “Oh, you’ll be fearsome to behold indeed.”

The hook popped out from behind them, trailing down Emma’s cheek as the gun in his other hand caressed her neck. “Not quite so fearsome as us, though,” he whispered, both hands drifting steadily lower. “Now, if you could just tell us what you know about this case –”

Emma’s hand went flying, her fist knocking flat into the man’s jaw. He staggered back, slamming head first into the wall, and Neal paused only long enough to pry the gun from his hand before shooting down the end of the alley, Emma in tow. 

They sped down the end of the alley, dodging the bullet that ricocheted off the wall in front of them. Neal pointed his own gun behind them, firing blindly, but he knew by the heavy footfalls that he’d missed.

“At least one of us is a good shot,” he huffed, thrusting the gun into Emma’s hand. “Nice punch.”

“Thanks,” she panted. “I’ve had practice.”

He lit her dig slide, pulling her instead toward the street on their left. He made a line for the next alley on their right, hoping this one would have a door they could escape through. But the only thing in sight was a brick wall – they were cornered. 

“Shit.” 

A low chuckle followed his curse, and the two of them spun on their heels to look at the alley’s opening. Their followers had caught up. Neal glanced back at the wall, wondering if he could get Emma up and jump over it himself if he took a running start. It would be hard, but not impossible. 

Or wasn’t, until he noticed Cora sticking a pair of thick plugs into her ears. At her sides, the men opened their mouths, and Neal went white – he’d forgotten to question what their powers were. He’d forgotten that Cora tended to associate with Bleeders. 

He turned to Emma, taking in her eyes wide with fear and confusion. She didn’t stop for a second, though, lifting the gun and aiming it at Cora is if a bullet could actually kill her. The two hit men started to scream. 

Neal didn’t think about what he was doing, didn’t think about anything. He just thrust out his hands, pushing at Emma’s body… and she disappeared through the wall. 

He lifted his palms, eyeing them in shock. He’d done it – he’d actually Moved her. She was safe. 

And he was not. 

Neal knew the exact moment their screams hit his hears. He could feel it, the weight, the agony, as the sound splintered every vessel in his body. He couldn’t walk, or stand, or breathe, and the soggy pavement was suddenly smashed to his face as he fell to his knees. His hands clamped desperately over his ears, but even they felt wet, and they didn’t muffle the sound at all. When he pulled his fingers away, they were soaked with blood. 

Another wave of sound surrounding him, making the world shake and his heart stop. He clutched his ears against the pain and the blood, useless though it was. This was what death felt like – he’d come close enough countless times before to know it. He’d never find out if his father was alive. He’d never get the chance to find him. Emma would never get her case – like him, she’d be hunted down for the rest of her life. He didn’t even know her, but that thought, more than even the loss of his dad, made his whole body seize up. 

He closed his eyes, shutting blood and sweat behind the lids, and prepared for his life to end. 

“Stop!”

The voices died. Neal flumped to his stomach, a hollow moan leaving him as he met the ground. His ears stung, pulsing like needles had been jammed into them, but somehow that only made the sound hurt worse. He opened his mouth, fully expecting to vomit, but all that came out was more blood.

“Stop,” Cora’s voice repeated faintly. “If we kill him now, we’ll lose the girl. And I just Saw where she is.” A foot collided with his head. “He dies anyway.”

He felt a single nudge, a faint pain rippling through his body, and then the foot was gone. The sound of footsteps echoed heavily in his brain, and he couldn’t find it in himself to be thankful that the noise meant they were leaving.

Nauseous, he rolled onto his back, watching Cora’s dress whip around the corner. As they disappeared, a lone sheet of paper floated onto the ground behind her. There was a picture on it, jet black and intricately drawn, but that wasn’t what made him look. What did was that the picture was of a ship. The same ship Emma had drawn in her book. 

He reached out to touch it, but his arm fell short, barely grazing the dock at the bottom of the picture. There were words there, faint enough that he could only just make it out. ERIC PESCADO SHIPYARD.

Pescado… he knew where that was. 

A trickle of blood moved from his ear to his mouth, filling it with red. His body thumped to the ground, arm still sprawled out in front of him. Someone called his name, pulsing through his splintered eardrums like a freight train. 

His eyes slammed shut, and the world went black.


End file.
